Artistic Ocean
by michi89
Summary: Story of the life of Michiru Kaioh - before Haruka. Here, I'm going to set her character in early twenties to go better with the setting. Beautiful and talented, somewhat cold but actually sensitive, Michiru Kaioh is one mysterious girl.
1. Chapter 1

She closed her eyes and inhaled deeply, but she still felt the annoyance that tingled at the back of her head, ready to attack. She should have been used to this by now. Any normal person would have been used to this by now. But she wasn't normal.

Michiru ran her fingers through her wavy locks and sighed deeply, hoping someone would take notice. Of course, nobody did. At last, she slammed shut her sketchbook and stood up from her seat, the chair wobbling in place she left.

Today she'll just go home, and relax. If that was possible – or maybe she could stop by the café on her way and finish some sketches? Her mind wondered aimlessly as she took out her subway card, walking through crowds of people of all ages and gender and looks. She stood out among them, she always did. Slender at a medium height, with her long, dark wavy hair half up, and her youthful, flawless face staring emptily into space whilst everyone around her chatted or laughed animatedly, Michiru felt pretty much alone. Besides, the subway air was excruciatingly painful to breathe, mixed with dirty underground air with smoke and dusty substance that lingered in the background. Wrenching her nose, Michiru wrapped her scarf around her more tightly, balancing to hold her purse and bag without dropping them.

Finally, the train arrived. Patiently Michiru hopped in after letting a few eager get-goers and elderly through. As usual, the train was packed with passengers, and Michiru walked near to the door and stared at her reflection in the windows, trying to ignore the uncomfortable close proximity of others near her. She thought about her lonely shell cottage on the bank of the vast ocean – her only house, her resort to happiness and her escape from reality. Finally, she had her own place, and she could do whatever she wished to do. She thought of the huge aquarium surrounding the walls, and reminded herself to feed the fish immediately after. Then she'll kick off her sandals and go to the ocean, dip her feet inside, and nobody will reach her in that silence and privacy of pure heaven.

These thoughts filled her mind, until the haste stop of the train made her and the rest of the passengers jerk to their right. Michiru found balance, but was attacked with a sheer annoyance when the less agile and clumsier man accidentally bumped into her, without muttering an apology.

_Just ignore…._she thought. Two more stops.

After a tense moment of breathing in people's scent, Michiru was free from the train. She walked up the stairs, eager to see the dark sky and stars glittering among them, to find her own set of happiness and peace.

From there, she walked alone. Less people were nearby as she walked deeper away from the city, and at last her true love – the dark, mystic pool of ocean, greeted her.

She smiled, remembering why she still was alive. W_ithout this, _she thought, admiring the beauty of the sea, _I would die. Surely. _

She walked and walked, passing a few couples and cozy shops and restaurants nearby. Then she saw her lonely shell cottage, miles away from rest of the world, placed on the tip of the land, as if it sat directly on top of the ocean.

At last, nobody was nearby, and she breathed peacefully. She entered through her private gate with her keys, and unlocked the door in few seconds. And she was home.

The familiar scent of her house greeted her, with warm fireplace barely cackling near the sofa. Her giant aquarium was blue and shining with beauty, with her tropical fish swimming amongst themselves peacefully, without noise.

"Hello" she said sweetly at them, grabbing their can of food. The swarmed beautifully towards her, as she hand fed them, her smooth, slender fingers dipping into their cool salt water, the fish recognized Michiru immediately.

"Did you miss me?" she asked, smiling at them. "I missed you guys terribly." She swirled her index finger teasingly around the small yellow fish, which played along with her.

Michiru laughed. Oh how she loved playing with them! So beautiful and peaceful, they were the perfect creatures.

She sat and watched them for a while, as they played and ate their food and swam flawlessly through the water, creating air bubbles in place.

"You know, it's been a while since I swam like that." She murmured, sighing. She got up and walked towards the huge window that opened towards the ocean, which now glimmered under the white moon. "too long, actually." She said nonchalantly, and she took off her scarf and earrings.

She walked towards the water, and shed the rest of her clothes. This is what she loved about her house, it was private, nobody could see her. She certainly did not mind being alone.

She plunged into the water, and gasped at how cool and amazing the water felt against her weary skin. She dove underwater and swam, exploring the mysterious ocean, which she felt no stranger to, and she felt home. This is where she belonged.

Ah, only if she could grow fins! She thought, as she lay against the cool water and stared up at the sky. In the distance, she heard cries of whales, and she closed her eyes. This was enriching her inner life, and she felt heaven.

After a few more swimming, Michiru was back on land, water dripping from her body and wet hair. She grabbed her clothes and walked through the cool sand, back at her house.

Looking at her pile of books, she sighed, remembering she had homework and exams to study for. She walked up stairs into a hot shower, rather quickly, and brushed her hair, numbly staring at herself in the mirror.

Her face was doubtless lovely. Perhaps that was an understatement, but she was beautiful. Michiru knew she was beautiful, with her almond shaped eyes the shade of dark ocean at night, her small nose and luscious lips, she wondered why she was alone.

Not friends – she gave up on those long time ago, but she wanted someone special. Her other half. Her soulmate maybe.

She knew to most people, she came across as cold and somewhat shy, proud in her multiple talents and her looks. She had somewhat a brisk manner, and she disliked small talks. She kept herself very private, and she rarely went out drinking or to clubs with her fellow classmates. She knew what she liked, she knew her what things made her happy. And partying was not one of them.

But she didn't care, she was happy in her own world, though may seem strange to others. She was perfectly fine living alone. She never got along too well with her parents, whom she felt were too insensitive and rather boisterous for her liking. It was her biggest happiness she was finally able to afford a place of her own, in her own dream land.

She placed her brush down, curling her wet hair between her fingers, she slipped into her robes and sat on her sofa, with her half-done painting of the Ocean king, Poseidon.

Homework can wait, she thought. The material was easy anyway.


	2. Chapter 2

Michiru always began her day with a classical music. Today she'd listen to waltz by Chopin, her favourite composer. It was a hard choice between that and Tchaikovsky, her other favourite composer, whom she loved for his gorgeous ballet music.

Oddly, Michiru found herself skipping lightly to the bathroom, feeling somewhat free and elegant, remembering last night of how she dreamt of a blonde haired man taking her hand for a dance. And she still remembered the feeling of being light as a feather, as if she could float and defy gravity just like that. The dream still vividly embedded in her mind, she grabbed her towel and jumped into the hot shower.

This was no doubt, one of her favourite things to do. Michiru liked to feel fresh in the morning, and throughout the day. She would arch her back, letting her dark curls fall gracefully behind her while the steamy water consumed her body. And closing her eyes, she'd forget everything. And she would sing the melodies of her dreams inside her head, closing her eyes.

Being a concert violinist at an early age, she was very sophisticated in terms of her musical choice and the way she absorbed arts. Strange for her, nobody understood her passion for the classics, and thought she was either presumptuously intelligent and quite a snob, or just very boring and incredibly mature for her age.

It was true though, after all she was very, very different from her peers at school, even the ones who were older, who all seemed very straightforward and simple, lacking in sophisticated aura or anything that denoted a classical soul within. Perhaps that was one of the reasons she was always alone. While the usual hand of people around her age blasted loud R&B or rock, she preferred to sit quietly in an isolated compartment listening to a bittersweet melody of a violin or the piano, or the grandeurs of an orchestra which made her feel at home. She had a few acquaintances here and there who all respected her and smiled at her every time they met, but asked never to hang out for a coffee, drink, anything.

They all decided secretly by themselves Michiru was a bit too high-maintenance or somewhat "above all" type of things, and that her taste was awfully vintage when it came to certain things, and that she most of all, took high pride in herself and hated to be patronized. With her calm surface but with intensely deep emotions, she particularly did not enjoy people either, she always felt better surrounded be subjective things like music, or art, or the ocean. And one cannot forget her beautiful collection of tropical fish residing in her huge tank.

When she got out of the shower, sunlight was softly hazing through the cerulean curtains in her living room, with a glimpse of the ocean sparkling outside, with its quiet waves beginning to fill Michiru's day once more.

After watching her fish swim and dance, Michiru made herself some breakfast and ate quietly, with classical waltz and waves in the background, as if to serenade their Queen. Her dark, luscious hair was still wet, meeting the sunlight revealing tints of chocolate and even gold here and there. Her wide, dark eyes set intently at the ocean in front of her, just for her only, and for nobody else. The ocean seemed to beckon her, which she kindly declined, and with a great amount of reluctance, for she had class to get to that day.

Walking through the halls she's been a hundred of times, it still felt uncomfortable and unfamiliar towards her. It felt too caged, or to materialistic. It also felt too normal, too flat. Either way, she didn't enjoy being there. Class was okay, as usual, she didn't learn particularly much but basically knew most things and the material was easy. Perhaps she could get more painting done tonight.

She took out her keys as she neared her car, when she saw a reflection in her car window. Abruptly she turned with one swift notion, and saw a tall, slender young man standing near a very swift looking, racing car, sparkling with its beauty, red in colour and looking very agile, like the man. And his expressions, hard to read, was focused right on Michiru's eyes. They were about ten metres apart, and instantly she felt a kind of nostalgic creeping inside her heart. And then with one quick motion, missable by a blink of an eye, the man was inside his fancy car and was driving off with loud noise and unbelievable speed.

Perhaps a professional racer? Michiru thought curiously, her hand upon her heart without noticing. His eyes, his stare. She could not forget it as she drove home, her mind wandering aimlessly while Beethoven's 5th symphony played in the background.

Michiru sat in her own car, now a bit cold from parked for a few hours in the lot, thinking. Something about him was very familiar to her, giving her an aura of a feeling that he too, was as alone as she was, and was in fact, okay with it.

Now that she thought, it had been a while since she had any friends… had she any even? Probably not. She had a few acquaintances whom, she guessed, could have been called as her friends. But she knew too well to trust anyone. She'd been backstabbed a few times, ignored, forgotten – many things that triggered her mind to put up a solid desolate wall against any that came near to befriend her over the years. She snorted at the names like 'best friends' or 'friends forever', because clearly to her own personal experience, no such things existed, no matter how hard she'd tried.

Yes, she'd tried. She had stooped low just to keep _one _friend. It never worked. She was never the best, or was fully given credit for being a friend. The way she was naturally, it was not meant for other acquaintances. And after many years of depression and tears, Michiru had come to accept it. It was her destiny to be different, and she had begun to embrace it.

She hated getting hurt for things that did not matter to anybody else but only to herself, something she hated to endure just so she'd seem like the 'normal, decent' type of friend to others. It was not in her agenda, and she was not going to try it anymore.

Michiru had always been a very secretive, sensitive soul. Her extremely high abilities to sense the tiniest wavelengths of human feelings, thoughts, provocation, colours or any beauty of imagery – it required her to pay the price in other many ways. She was highly responsive to feelings, and even though she never showed or told, she cried easily and had a very quick, _frightening _temper.

Being incredibly beautiful and naturally gifted with many talents, she had been an easy target for the girl who everybody would, or should befriend, with a history of many handsome boyfriends.

Or so that's what everybody thought.

Michiru never had many friends, nor did she even wonder if she ever had any true ones. It made her want to laugh just thinking about the thought. She had never had a boyfriend, it was not something she avoided on purpose, but mainly for the reason that to everyone else, Michiru was incredibly hard to approach, intimidating, goddess-like. Everyone just _assumed _she was happy the way she was. That's what annoyed her the most. Everybody just assumed things. Everyone just stereotyped things. People did not even realize the slightest effort to see that everything was in fact, _not _the way it seemed.

There was no denying she wasn't happy the way she was however, she snorted, thinking. After all, all she needed or wanted in life was her world of ocean, the place she felt she belonged to the most, her violin that could create music deep enough to move even the coldest souls, her magnificent painting, and her freedom of peace.

And well, perhaps….. Michiru was a hopeless romantic, and someday she knew she would need her soul mate. It couldn't be just anyone. It had to be her other half, created just for her.

It was easy to think of Michiru as a passive being, but she clearly did not hold back when she needed to be aggressive. She wasn't selfish, exactly, she just knew what she needed to keep herself at par with the world she somehow did not belong.

She placed the key in the ignition and twisted it a bit too forcefully.

Tchaikovsky's final act of Swan Lake, wistfully but incredibly exquisitely, played out of her stereo, serenading her. Her other favourite.

Automatically she turned up the volume, letting herself soak in sudden sorrow of loneliness that was vastly devouring her, overlapped with a feeling of hope and fluttering fear that she knew not of. Imagining herself as the dying swan, disappearing in the darkness surrounded with white feathers, to enter the world of eternal happiness she longed.

What was this sudden passion she was feeling?

She admitted to herself, she wasn't happy, really. And she still had yet to continue her journey of life to find the missing piece.

The very last piece.


End file.
